Author: Deanna Lawrence

The ultimate in personalized brand experiences. REI is giving shoppers a reason to do something other than shop. REI will close on Black Friday, pay employees for the day, and motivate all-of-us to create memories.

Using the hashtag #OptOutside, brand engagement is already strong and emotional connections to REI are very positive.

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Hang with startup kids long enough, and you’ll notice that they have their own language. No, bro, it’s a SaaS play in the on-demand food space. Think of it as the Uber for gluten-free Whole Foods delivery, ok? It never ends: We’re actively raising, but really want to make sure that we hit investor-board fit before product-market sync, you know?

This can be confusing.

However, TechCrunch is here to demystify startup lingo into a more common lingua franca. The startup kids, after all, are worth trying to understand. One or two of them might even build something usable.

So, without further ado, I give you How To Speak Startup:

Acqui-hire – A strategy for acquiring talent pioneered by Google in the mid-2000s that happens when a bigger company thinks your team is good but your idea is hilariously bad. Also called a “signing bonus.”

Facebook is still the most popular social network, but its growth has slowed in the U.S., according to a new report out this morning from the Pew Research Center. Meanwhile, more Americans are now using multiple social media sites, allowing platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn to all achieve significant increases in user numbers over the past year, the report found.

It’s been said for some time that Facebook has reached “critical mass” here in the U.S., and these new figures go further to support that claim – the social network remains the most popular, but its membership levels here have seen little change from where they were in 2013. One exception to this is with the “older” adults demographic.

For the first time, more than half (56%) of internet users ages 65 and older use Facebook. Yes: grandma and grandpa are now on Facebook.

[tc_dropcap] An unexpected consequence of our love apps is that now there’s just too damn many of them. The app stores are overcrowded, leaving developers desperate for a way to get their games and utilities discovered. That is why the app install ad has become the lifeblood of the mobile platform business.[/tc_dropcap]

Big brands aren’t the only ones to suck up to anymore. No one buys a car or Coca-Cola on their phone, at least not yet, so proving the return on investment of mobile ads to these businesses is tough. There is one thing people will instantly plop down a few bucks for on the small screen, though: Apps.

[tc_rr_related_video] [tc_rr_crunchbase]

Lured by billions in app install ad spend per quarter and hoping to grow that pie, Facebook, Twitter, and Google have stepped up. But to win those dollars, they have to buddy up to developers.

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The Internet of Things (IoT) offers an important point of communication and the ability to learn about consumer lifestyle.
For consumers, the ability to manage all of these connected things is going to be a challenge. FridgeNality accounts for IoT and manages very smart connections.

When it comes to the smart home, big names like Nest and Dropcam have gotten most of the attention due to their product success and lucrative acquisition figures. But as impressive as these products have been, there are a multitude of other unknown products ranging from door locks to basic thermostats that require connectivity and back end cloud services.

Stepping into this market niche are a wave of Internet of Things (IoT) platform providers that work with manufacturers to provide both hardware (modules with a processor and a wifi chip) and software services like iOS/Android integration, APIs, and cloud services. While big players like GE and Cisco likely will make a play for this space, particularly on the industrial side, the early startups include Electric Imp, Ayla Networks, Xively and Arrayent.

Sexy air conditioning

It’s a lot less sexy than Nest, but for manufacturers that don’t have internal engineering teams…